The lives cut short

Craig Baxter

On Wednesday Craig Baxter's new life in Thailand formally ended, as the Auckland-born victim of the Boxing Day tsunami was cremated in a Buddhist ceremony in the Thai resort town of Pattaya.

His four months' pregnant Thai wife, Maliwan, was joined by Baxter's mother, Sandra Sweeney, who flew to Thailand from her Gold Coast home to farewell her 37-year-old, only son.

Baxter's long road to Phi Phi Island, where he died after pushing Maliwan to safety, began in Auckland, but was spent mainly on Queensland's Gold Coast after crossing the Tasman as an infant.

Baxter thrived on the Gold Coast. He was described by his mother as a larrikin, by friends as the life of the party and by close mate Paul Morton, best man at Craig and Maliwan's wedding, as a bloke who was always there for his friends.

"He was the type of guy that if you were his mate, you were his blood," Morton told the Herald from Thailand shortly after confirming Baxter's death.

After leaving school he developed as an entrepreneur, running an employment business on the Gold Coast, where his mother lived in the suburb of Varsity Lakes, developed around Bond University and close to the big Robina centre.

But his future lay in Asia. He had worked in investment finance, and lived for a time in Hong Kong.

Three years ago he met Maliwan while on holiday in Phuket, Thailand, and fell in love with both his wife-to-be and her homeland.

"He really loved that girl," his mother told the Herald before leaving for he funeral. "They were made for each other."

About 18 months ago he moved to Thailand, living first in Bangkok and then moving to the coastal city of Pattaya, a former fishing village 147km southeast of the capital that exploded as a rest and recreation centre for American soldiers during the Vietnam War.

The couple bought a bar, the La La Land Bar, which Maliwan managed while Baxter commuted to a finance job in Bangkok three days a week.

The Baxters married in March, in his wife's home village of Bun Phu, near the Laotian border.

Just before Christmas they sold the bar, he bought an interest in a dive shop, and the couple planned to move to Bun Phu to live.

But on Christmas Day they arrived on Phi Phi Island for a two-week holiday. The following day he was killed.

Leone Cosens

Running a beach resort on the island of Phuket sounds like a pretty good life, but it was not enough for Leone Cosens.

Cosens was New Zealand's first officially recognised death in the tsunami that struck coastal areas around the Indian Ocean on December 26.

The 51-year-old had lived for 12 years in Phuket, off Thailand's west coast, and from the beginning had been horrified by the number of stray and starving dogs. She began to feed a few, and then more. The scale of the job became too great for one person, so she organised a network of helpers to feed the stray, abandoned and maltreated animals.

But feeding stray animals and nursing them back to health creates its own problems.

Her organisation, the Soi Dog Foundation, realised that a sterilisation programme was needed to keep the population under control. They arranged a roster of visiting volunteer veterinarians to vaccinate and sterilise the strays and also organised an education programme for the local population, teaching them to take responsibility for the programme themselves.

"She leaves a huge void not only in the animal world but also in the people world," fellow animal welfare campaigner Margot Homburg Park told the Dominion Post. "She was very caring and very loving."

Cosens grew up in Paraparaumu on the Kapiti Coast, and moved to Thailand with her American husband Tim. Her body was found near the rubble of her beach house, where it is thought she had gone to help a pregnant woman who was staying in the house. Other guests in the house escaped with severe injuries.

Her husband and his parents were spared the worst of the waves. Tim had suffered a stroke in November, and was at the local hospital with his parents for physiotherapy when the tsunami hit.

Cosens was cremated in Thailand after a Buddhist-Christian ceremony in the temple of Wat Rawai at Phuket Rawai beach on December 31. The service was attended by volunteers in the dog charity organisation, and by the temple dogs, attracted no doubt by the dog biscuits scattered about the temple.

The King of Thailand honoured Cosens' work in a special ceremony in Bangkok on January 1. A memorial fund is to be set up through the Soi Dog Foundation to continue the work and to pay the salaries of the local people who helped.

* If you would like to help to continue Leone Cosens' work with stray animals in Phuket, visit Soi Dog Foundation to make a donation.

June Kander

If June Kander had not been killed by the tsunami she would undoubtedly have been among those first on the scene to help in the aftermath.

She was that sort of woman, say friends and family.

The 73-year-old, who had dual New Zealand and Canadian citizenship, had spent her life travelling and helping others.

With a PhD in English literature, she helped re-establish programmes at Kuwait University after the Gulf War and had set up English language programmes and resources in Laos, Yemen, Egypt and Hong Kong.

She was a linguistics education curriculum development specialist who most recently worked for Canadem, a Canadian non-profit agency which helps the United Nations and others identify qualified experts for international work.

In a tribute website set up by her only son, Brandon, she is described by friends, family and colleagues as an intelligent, curious and inspirational woman who lived life to the full.

And Paul LaRose-Edwards, executive director of Canadem, says: "I for one will long remember her engagement with life at an age when most everyone else was long retired and playing it safe.

"I had expected to hear that she had immediately gone to help the victims of the tsunami, which would have been her style and a reflection of her generosity of spirit."

Others spoke of an original and intriguing woman who was "always ready to raise a glass to life" and would tell stories about all the places she had lived that made the world "a slightly larger, more complex place".

Her nephew, Kevin Worsley, who lives in Masterton, said Kander's global experience gave her a deep caring for the plight of others affected by political events. "Of more recent concern to her was the invasion and continuing problems in Iraq and the results of the US election."

June Kander was born in Greymouth in 1931. The passion for travel that started soon after she left Auckland Girls Grammar never waned.

When the tsunami struck she had stopped in Sri Lanka after a friend's wedding in Laos and was staying at a hotel on Mirisaa Beach.

This week her 91-year-old sister, Thelma King, a resident at Torbay Resthome, said she was distraught to learn of her younger sister's death. She remembered a "bright, clever little thing" who was very clever with languages and had always been a great traveller.

June Kander, who lived in Quebec City, spoke French, Spanish and German and had some knowledge of Arabic, Russian and Lao. An avid reader, she attended book clubs in between her trips away.

Among the many tributes, some in French, was one from a Canadian couple who worked with her in Vietnam: "Somehow it seems fitting that such a full and adventurous life should end in such a momentous way."

Cholathea Cheakham Meakhathalea

Cholathea lived at Ban Nan Khem, a very poor fishing village on Phuket Island's southern coast, not far from the devastated Khao Lok area.

He was a big, strong man and devoted to his family.

His brother, Mi Meakhathalea, says that because the family was so poor Cholathea wasn't able to go to school for long and after six years had to begin working to help support the family.

Although uneducated he was known as a hard worker. Every day he would wake up early to search for bait to catch fish for his family to eat and to sell.

That was what he was doing when the tsunami struck.

His body was found on an island, six days after the wave, a long way from home. The house he shared with the extended family no longer exists. The village was almost wiped out.

Mi Meakhathalea says that although Cholathea was always working he was a happy man and hoped to marry and have children. "He was a very lovely boy, very fun, he protective for the family," the brokenhearted Mi Meakhathalea says through a translator. "We lose someone we love very much."

Dilrukshi De Silva

After a year or more living in the former Yugoslavia, Dilrukshi de Silva went home to Sri Lanka last January.

She and husband Nalaka had made enough money to build their dream house in his home village, and pregnant Dilrukshi wanted to have her baby with her mother nearby.

On Boxing Day morning, Nalaka was working abroad but his wife was at their house at Malawanee, on Sri Lanka's southwest coast, packing for a trip.

Society in Sr Lanka dictates it is not appropriate for a woman to live at home alone. Her husband's parents had been looking after her and now it was her own family's turn. And her family - parents, two younger sisters and brother - were devoted to her.

They knew her as "a good girl", kind to her relatives and smart at school.

She had passed her exams before an aunt introduced Nalaka and Dilrukshi for their arranged marriage, in September 2002. "Your presence is most appreciated and adds joy and happiness to our celebration of a lifetime," their wedding card says.

Then, like many other Sri Lankan newlyweds, they went overseas to earn better money. Nalaka was a computer expert, and had a job in hotel management. Dilrukshi did not work.

Christmas two weeks ago was spent with her husband's family but on Boxing Day her mother was due to take her to the village she grew up in, Kalutara.

Early that morning Dilrukshi, 28, was ready to leave, waiting at home for the bus with her baby, her mother Teenimalawath, 65, sister Tushari, 23, and her father-in-law.

When the first wave crashed against the side of their house without warning, Tushari urged everyone to flee through a window. They waded through knee high water for 10 minutes, until, suddenly, the waters receded.

Dilrukshi and her mother thought the family should go back to the house.

But as they reached their front gate, the second, much larger, surge of water tore through.

Clinging to her son with one hand, Dilrukshi desperately tried to also hold on to her mother as the family sheltered against the front gate.

When it collapsed, all five were swept away.

Tushari was able to climb a coconut tree, wrapping her legs around its trunk before climbing on to and using a banana tree for support.

She and Nalaka's father were swept along together, coming to rest about a kilometre from home.

When the waters dropped, the two could find no sign of the others.

Seven-month-old Ruwansa and his grandmother were lost.

Their bodies were finally found five and six days later, washed into fields. Dilrukshi's body was found in a neighbour's house, beneath a chair.

It was returned to her dream home, and three days later she was cremated in her garden.